We Are The Champions
This week is going to be crazy because we’ve got Adam’s family holiday get-together at the end of the week (we’re here for Thanksgiving, then with my family for Christmas), which involves (oh dear Jesus) a PLANE RIDE, and you may recall that I am very, very bad on plane rides when I’m flying sans baby, and to say that I have no idea how this particular trip is going to go is an UNDERSTATEMENT. The thing is, I spend most of the pre-flight preparations concentrating on how I’d extricate myself from the fuselage in the event of a near-catastrophe, and that’s when it’s just ME, assuming that Adam is of reasonably able body and can get himself out. I then reason that if for some reason he CAN’T, well, then, I can help him — or try to, at least — and friends, that is when I get VERY PANICKY, because I am not very strong, and you know what else? I AM NOT GOOD IN A CRISIS.
But now. OH NOW. Now I have not only myself to worry about, but I have a BABY, the most important thing in the entire universe, and I am responsible for getting her on and off of the plane and that’s when it ISN’T burning or landing in the Hudson or flown by drunk pilots or helmed by two dudes too distracted by Bejeweled on their personal laptops to realize that they OVERSHOT THE AIRPORT. And this is before we’ve even considered the possibility that THE TSA MIGHT STEAL MAH BABY.
I am super-fun to travel with, as you can imagine. Only now, I have to remain calm in order to keep Samantha calm, and I’m going to be spending the next three days practicing my deep-breathing exercises and maybe securing a prescription for Xanax, except not really, because that makes me SLEEPY and I sense that it’s not very responsible to pass out open-mouthed and drugged with a baby attached to your boob, right?
AHEM. I got nothing other than that, because my mind is all focused on WOOP WOOP PANIC ABORT MISSION PANIC about this shit (IT IS A SMALL PLANE). So here! Here are random bits of nothingness that are the only things I can think of that do not involve plunging from the sky with my baby into the deep, deep abyss.
– We never call Samantha by her name. Or even by Sam. I mean, RARELY, y’all, to the point where I worry that she’s not going to know it, but in truth, it doesn’t really matter. We call her Beebs, by the way. Short for Beeber McSteebs, which happened … I don’t even know how it happened, but it involved Queen’s “We Are The Champions” and some customized lyrics about our daughter, Bee Bop and Banthers. (I don’t know, either.) I mean, my FRIENDS call her Beebs, as do some her little toddler buddies. She is Beebs or Beebers. This ONLY concerns me because my parents used to be friends with a woman named Snookie. SNOOKIE. Because her father always called her Snookie growing up and it STUCK. I just imagine my kid’s business card reading “Beebs R–”
– I made chocolate chip cookies with bacon grease tonight, and though I am not a bacon worshiper, I had high hopes that they would at least be DIFFERENT in some way. I mean, I replaced HALF THE BUTTER with bacon grease (a half cup, yo!) and yet … nothing. They’re delicious, certainly, but they are basically just a chocolate chip cookie.
– I am creepily fascinated by ultra-conservative women. CREEPILY. Sarah Palin! Michele Bachmann! Ann Coulter! Michelle Malkin! They could not be more different from me, ideology-wise, but there is something eerily magnetic about them, and I cannot stop watching them or reading about them. It’s a SICKNESS. And I could really go on about this, and my theory of WHY they are so successful, but it would sound sexist and misogynistic, even though I don’t believe that it IS, but I know that I would not be good at explaining it in a way that clarified WHY it wasn’t that way, and I’d bumble around for a really long time before throwing up my hands and saying, “I guess I DO hate women. Except I know that I don’t. SOMEONE HELP ME.”
– I really, really hope I’m a good mom. I think about it every day, all the time, and I’m so scared that I’m not. I love that kid so freakin’ much, and I know it’s uncool to say so, but being her mom is the best thing I’ve ever done, ever. It’s a huge honor and responsibility, to be someone’s guide through life, and once in a while, the overwhelming weight of it just knocks my ass right over.
Happy Monday!
*Queen. For my Bee Bop Beeber McSteebs
46 comments November 15th, 2009